THEORETICAL BIOLOGY: Evolutonary Ecology of Disease
BIO 612
Fall Semester 2008


Course Description

Instructor: Dr. Thomas Caraco

Office: Biology 253A

Phone: 442-4343

Email  caraco@albany.edu


Course Description

    Discussion will address theoretical foundations of current research at the interface of evolutionary ecology and epidemiology. Students will complete assigned reading and organize its analysis. Specific topics may include between-host transmission processes, within-host pathogen dynamics, free-living pathogens, disease virulence, models of immune response, and evolution of antibiotic resistance. The first two meetings will address alternative (competing) mathematical formulations for transmission of infection.

    Grading will be S/U, 2 credit hours.

    Class will meet once pre week; day and time will be arranged during the initial week of the Fall 08 semester.


Rob de Boer, U Utrech (NL), provides a free, on-line textbook for students of theoretical biology. This semester's version of Bio 612 will not address models explicity presented in Modeling Population Dynamics: a Graphical Approach, but we shall draw on general principles included in the text.
As class meetings begin, links to assigned papers will appear below.

Modeling Infection Transmission     Mart De Jong et al., 1995     Hans Heesterbeek et al., 1995    
Print the paper by De Jong et al. before reading.
Considering Transmission Dynamics     Lloyd-Smith et al., 2005     van der Goot et al., 2005    
    
Schedule of Class Meetings
    
4 September, Speaker: T. Caraco Infectious Disease Dynamics
11 September, Speaker: T. Caraco Adaptive Dynamics: Evolution of Virulence
    11 September, Papers van Baalen and Sabelis, 1995     Caraco et al., 2006
18 September, Speaker: A. Alstadt Paper: Wearing et al., 2005
25 September, Speaker: A. Alstadt Paper: Jeger et al., 2007
2 October, Speaker: S. Morgan Paper: Choisy and Rohani, 2006
16 October, Speaker: S. Morgan Paper: Ausubel et al., 2001
23 October, Speaker: P. Lathrop Paper: Bonhoeffer et al., 1996
30 October, Speaker: P. Lathrop Paper: Tanaka et al., 2002
6 November, Speaker: M. Stone Paper: de Roode et al., 2005
13 November, Speaker: M. Stone Paper: Read and Keeling, 2003
20 November, Speaker: H. Wilson Paper: Ebert and Bull, 2003
     A folder of papers on virulence tradeoffs
4 December, Speaker: H. Wilson Paper: Lipsitch, 2001



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Page last updated September 12, 2008 by Dr. Thomas Caraco.